PUNTA GORDA, FLA. – The nationally third-ranked Cortland baseball team opened its 10-game Florida schedule with a 14-12 win over 16th-ranked Marietta.
Cortland took a 10-0 lead with 10 runs in the bottom of the first, but had to withstand a Marietta comeback to slip past the Pioneers at Charlotte High School.
The teams combined for seven homers, partially with the aid of a decent tailwind. Red Dragon senior captains Donny Castaldo (Mount Kisco/Fox Lane), Mark DeMilio (Valhalla) and Adam Smith (Vestal), along with senior Vinny Bomasuto (Dunkirk), homered for Cortland. Tim McCoy, Tyler Packanik and Chris Petrucci went deep for Marietta (6-3).
Junior Seth Lamando (Hopewell Junction/Roy C. Ketcham) went 3-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI to lead Cortland's 14-hit attack. Smith was 2-for-3 with two RBI and two run. Junior Conrad Ziemendorf (Penfield/Webster Schroeder) and Castaldo each finished 2-for-5 with three RBI and two runs, while DeMilio went 2-for-4 with two RBI and three runs.
Marietta out-hit Cortland, 18-14. Eric White was 3-for-5 with an RBI and McCoy ended 3-for-6 with two RBI. Packanik, Chris Winpigler, Michael Barnabei and Mitch Geers each registered two hits.
Cortland's 10-run first featured RBI singles by Ziemendorf and Lamando, a Castaldo two-run double, a Smith RBi single, a two-run single Ziemendorf his second time through the lineup, and a Bomasuto three-run homer.
Marietta scored four in the second, including a Barnabei RBI double, but Castaldo hit a solo homer in the bottom of the inning to put Cortland up 11-4. Marietta's second reliever, Mitch McNabb, entered with two outs in the second and retired the first 12 straight batters he faced, and 15 of the first 16, to help keep the Pioneers in the game. Marietta scored once in the fourth, twice on a Petrucci two-run homer in the fifth, and three times in the sixth on a McCoy solo shot and a Packanik two-run blast to pull within 11-10.
Tyler Brien (Ilion), Cortland's second reliever, entered with one out in the sixth and struck out two batters. In the seventh, Marietta had a great chance to tie or take the lead after putting runners on first and third with no outs, but Brien got a pop-up, a strikeout and a lineout to end the threat and preserve Cortland's lead.
The Red Dragons then added three key insurance runs in the bottom of the seventh with two outs on a Smith solo homer, a Justin Teague (Syracuse/Cicero-North Syracuse) hit-by-pitch and a DeMilio two-run homer.
Brien struck out the side in the eighth. In the Marietta ninth, the first batter reached on a passed ball after a strikeout. Following a foul out, Travis Laitar (Fergus, ON/Centre Wellington) entered from the bullpen and allowed a White infield single. With two outs, pinch hitter Joey Begany singled in a run, and a double by McCoy put the tying runs on second and third. Geers walked to load the bases, but Laitar got the next hitter to ground into a fielder's choice to end the game.
Brandon Serio (Bedford Hills/Fox Lane) started for Cortland and earned the win despite allowing 11 hits and seven runs, six earned, in five innings. He struck out three and walked none. Brien finished with a pitching line of three innings with one hit, one walk and one unearned run allowed while fanning seven. Marietta starter Ray Sowinski took the loss with eight runs allowed in two thirds of an inning.